ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book took me some fifteen years to write (or to write right) and only took shape because of the help of some people who may not have ever known they were helping. I particularly want to note the two farmers in my life, both now gone, who taught or told me specific things I needed to know to write this book: my grandpa, Chuck Godwin, and Dale Randolph, my late stepfather. Because of them, I have driven a tractor, plowed a field, stacked hay, fed cattle, and learned the tiniest bit about what it is to be a farmer—enough to supplement it with research and imagination into the book you hold.

I’m grateful also to the other members of my Watonga-based family—my mom, Karen, my grandma Rose, and my stepdad, Dave—who have welcomed me over the years to the patch of Oklahoma ground we call our farm. The Tilden farm is very closely based on our land, as sharp-eyed observers in my family will note. I am grateful for the real people of Watonga, an awful lot of whom I seem to be related to in some degree. This is a novel, but I have tried to be as accurate as I could in depicting this fictional Watonga circa 1994. I have changed things as they’ve been necessary for the story, though, so please don’t assume that any person, place, or thing depicted in the book necessarily has a real-life analogue.

Well, except for the Hi-De-Ho, of course. I could never make up a place as good.

The Reverend Dr. Raymond Bailey unknowingly gifted me with the “weep with you” line in the last chapter during a sermon he preached fifteen years ago at Seventh and James Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, and I thank him. Sometimes things we say take a long time to bear fruit—but they do, eventually.

I give thanks for my agent, Jill Grosjean, who has stuck with me through thick and thin. It’s been awhile since the last novel. Thanks, J—and may the bookselling gods assure that this novel gets filed in the right part of the store so people have a chance to find it.

Thanks, as always, to Joe DeSalvo, Rosemary James, and the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society in New Orleans. They gave me my first big recognition, encouraged me in lean years, and celebrated with me in flush.

I am grateful to be working (again, in many cases) with the wonderful folks at David C Cook. Thanks to Don Pape, who directed his staff to get a book from me. Thanks to Andrea Christian, Steve Parolini, Kate Amaya, and Terry Behimer. It’s a joy to be back with you all, and I look forward to the next book.

Thanks to Baylor University, my employer, which has given me good work to do for twenty years, and to my students, who keep me energized and interested. Thanks to the College of Arts & Sciences and the Provost’s Office for sabbaticals and research leaves that made this book possible, to my deans Wallace Daniel and Lee Nordt, and to past Baylor provosts David Lyle Jeffrey and Randall O’Brien for their support of my writing. This book was completed during my 2008 research leave. Thanks to Maurice Hunt and Dianna Vitanza, my department chairs, for their encouragement and for a schedule that makes writing, speaking, and other authorial duties possible.

Thanks to the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest for a space to write and for many other things as well. Thanks to my classmates and colleagues there. Thanks to my community of faith, St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas, and to the communities of faith that have sustained me during these years, especially St. James’ Episcopal in Austin.

Thanks to the Right Reverend Greg Rickel, who always looks across the table and asks me, “So, what’s next?” and to the Most Reverend Rowan Williams, who kept telling me he was waiting for the next novel.

I am thankful for my boys, Jake and Chandler.

And I am thankful for Martha, who is the kindest person I know.

This book was written and rewritten at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and in Austin, Texas, and edited at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico. Many thanks to Jim Baird, Program Director, and Carole Landess, Host Companion at the Casa del Sol retreat center, for arranging a place to work.

I listened to Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Hornsby, Eliza Gilkyson, Shawn Colvin, Gin Blossoms, Dixie Chicks, Jon Dee Graham, Coldplay, Bob Schneider, and U2 while I wrote and rewrote this novel. Thanks to all of those artists for their inspiration, and for comfort in dark times.

Let’s imagine this is the back of a CD: Greg Garrett plays Martin, Fender, and Epiphone guitars and Hohner harmonicas.

Speaking of music, I’m going to go out on a limb and claim that my band, Lavabo, is the only roots/Americana group in Austin, Texas—the live music capital of the world—made up entirely of Episcopal priests and preachers. The folks I’ve played music with in recent years are the Reverend Cathy Boyd, the Reverend Ken Malcolm, the Reverend Kevin Schubert, the Reverend Lance Peeler (now gone on to the Pacific Northwest), and, following the departure of the Reverend Anthony MacWhinnie for the Gulf Coast, a bassist to be named later. You should hear us. Seriously.

Finally, thanks to all of you who buy my books, come to talks, signings, and teachings, or who have let me hear from you over the years.

I write first for myself, as every serious writer ought to.

And then, when I am finally happy with something, I give it to you.

Thank you for reading, and may God richly bless you.

Greg Garrett
Christmas 2008
Casa del Sol, Ghost Ranch
Abiquiu, New Mexico